Venture capital is flowing back into the cryptocurrency industry, with investors deploying $5.68 billion into crypto and blockchain companies during the second quarter of 2026.
Investment increased 31% from the previous quarter, while the number of completed deals rose 10% to 384. The stronger rebound in capital than in deal count indicates that larger financing rounds played a major role in the recovery.
The figures represent a notable improvement after venture activity cooled during the first quarter and suggest investors are becoming more willing to commit substantial amounts of capital to established crypto businesses.
Later-Stage Crypto Companies Capture 78% of Capital
The recovery was heavily concentrated among more mature companies.
Later-stage businesses received approximately 78% of all venture capital invested during the quarter, while younger companies accounted for the remaining 22%. At the same time, early-stage activity remained significant by deal count, with pre-seed transactions alone representing around 21% of completed deals.
The median crypto venture deal also reached an all-time high of approximately $4.9 million during the quarter, according to Galaxy.
That figure comes with an important caveat: valuation information was available for only 16% of Q2 transactions and was disproportionately concentrated among later-stage deals.
For the first half of 2026, venture firms invested $10.02 billion across 744 crypto deals. If that pace continues through the remainder of the year, investment would reach roughly $20 billion – close to the $20.3 billion deployed during all of 2025.
Trading and Exchanges Attract $3.52 Billion
The largest share of venture money went to companies involved in trading, exchanges, investing and lending.
Businesses in that category raised approximately $3.52 billion, accounting for roughly three-fifths of all crypto venture capital deployed during the quarter. The category also led by transaction count with 51 deals.
Decentralized finance ranked second with approximately $478 million in funding, followed by privacy and security companies. Tokenization, artificial intelligence, infrastructure, payments and other blockchain businesses also attracted investment.
The concentration was particularly pronounced among mature trading and financial businesses: more than 90% of capital invested in the trading, exchange, investing and lending category went to later-stage companies.
U.S. Crypto Companies Dominate Venture Investment
American companies continue to command the largest share of global crypto venture funding.
U.S.-headquartered businesses captured 73.5% of all capital invested in Q2, substantially ahead of every other country. The United Kingdom ranked second with 4%, followed by France at 3.2%.
The U.S. lead was smaller when measured by deal count, but still significant. American companies represented 39.1% of the quarter’s 384 transactions, compared with 7% for the United Kingdom and 5.7% for Singapore.
Despite the rebound in startup investment, raising new crypto-focused venture funds remains difficult. Investors committed approximately $3.9 billion to just five new funds during the quarter, the lowest number of newly raised crypto venture funds since 2019.
Galaxy said competition from AI investments, spot crypto ETFs and digital-asset treasury companies may be drawing institutional capital away from traditional crypto venture funds.
The overall picture is therefore mixed: investors are deploying substantially more money into established crypto businesses, but they remain cautious about committing capital to new venture funds.
For crypto startups, however, the second-quarter rebound shows that venture capital has not abandoned the sector. Instead, investors appear increasingly selective concentrating larger checks on mature companies with established businesses while maintaining smaller bets across emerging areas of blockchain technology.
